Deadly story familiar in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Shiite militiamen had kidnapped their brother.

So as the sun went down Wednesday, the six men — all members of the powerful Mashhadani tribe of Sunni Arabs — picked up their AK-47s and a bomb and headed for the other side of Huriya, a mixed northwestern Baghdad enclave that used to be a model of peaceful co-existence.

The explosive detonated near the local office of Muqtada al-Sadr, a firebrand Shiite Muslim cleric whose Mahdi army militiamen are accused of thousands of execution-style killings of Sunnis in Baghdad.

As the militia fighters ran outside to investigate the explosion, the Mashhadani men rushed inside, hoping to find the kidnapped brother.

But the fighters recovered more quickly than the Mashhadanis expected. The militia surrounded the building, besieged it and killed the rescue party.

Then they dragged two of the bodies into the street and set them on fire. "They kept them burning until 1 a.m.," said Faraj Mohammed, 30.

Read the rest at the Seattle Times

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